Truly, there are lots of things printers should consider when planning their marketing efforts.

To wit: In what industries are most of your customers? Do they work in marketing, purchasing, or creative environments? Are they typically inexperienced or pretty savvy when it comes to print production? Are they mostly designers? Do you sell in a small geographic area – or far and wide? Are they price-driven or quality-driven? And so on.

There’s another way to approach your marketing efforts. It’s not exclusive of all of those other considerations, but it’s something you need to think about:

What do most customers purchase from your company? What would you like them to purchase from your company?

Your answers are noteworthy. Consider the first question. If you do sell a particular product or service to most of your customers (newsletters, promo products, creative consulting, dimensional printing, etc.), then hopefully it’s very profitable for you. It’s what your company’s known for. And if you’re not already promoting this specialty heavily in all channels you use for marketing (including your site), you should.

Your answer to the second question – what do you want customers to purchase – will be more telling if sales for that product or service are slow. Something’s off. Maybe customers and prospects don’t even know about it. You’re clearly not promoting it effectively enough.

Indeed, if you want customers to purchase something that too few of them currently are, you need to address this with your sales team as well as your management team and your marketing specialist. You’ve got work to do.